Part 6 (1/2)

Friedrich (Fritz) Ebert, the Majority Socialist leader who later became the first president of the German Republic, defended the Independent Socialists and declared that the government had offered no evidence to substantiate its accusations against Haase, Dittmann and Vogtherr.

Deputy Naumann of the Progressive party also defended them indirectly, and both he and Deputy Trimborn of the Center (Clerical party) protested against any effort to place a Reichstag party outside the pale.

In view of the revolutionary activities of the Independent Socialists even before that date and of the occurrences of the succeeding year, which culminated in the overthrow of the government, this att.i.tude of supposedly loyal and patriotic parties of the Reichstag appears at first sight astonis.h.i.+ng and almost inexplicable. There were, however, two reasons (in the case of the Majority Socialists three reasons) for it.

Neither the _bourgeois_ parties nor the Majority Socialists had any conception of the extent of the revolutionary propaganda being carried on by the Independents and their more radical accomplices. As we shall see later, even the old party Socialists were completely taken by surprise when the actual revolution came, and revolution was almost an accomplished fact in Berlin, six days after it had begun in Kiel, before they awakened to what was happening. Hence the accusations against their colleagues of another party appeared to the three parties of the anti-annexationist wing of the Reichstag as a blow directed against all opponents of the pan-German program of the parties of the Right.

The second reason was psychological and to be found in the atmosphere of the day's session. It had started, as already reported, with the discussion of an interpellation regarding pan-German propaganda at the front and in the fleet. The anti-Chauvinist majority of the Reichstag had earlier found its way together in a _bloc_ composed of the Progressives, Clericals and Majority Socialists, and had adopted, on July 19, 1917, a resolution, in the main the work of Mathias Erzberger of the Clericals, calling for a peace without annexations or indemnities, and reserving the right of self-determination to all nations. Equally with the Independent Socialists, this _bloc_ had been stirred to indignation by the shameless manner in which the high civil and military authorities not only permitted the advocates of an imperialistic and annexationist peace to carry on their propaganda among the soldiers and sailors, but even encouraged and actively a.s.sisted in that work. Not only all Socialist publications, but even many _bourgeois_ papers of the stamp of the Berlin _Tageblatt_ were absolutely forbidden by the commanders of many troop units, and the soldiers were compelled to listen to speeches by members of the pan-German _Vaterlandspartei_ (Fatherland Party) and similar organizations. Ignorant of the extent and nature of the Independent Socialists' efforts to undermine authority, the _bloc_ parties saw in Admiral von Capelle's charges only another manifestation of the spirit against which their own fight was directed. That, in these circ.u.mstances, they should defend the Independents was but natural.

The third reason affecting the course of the Majority Socialists has already been referred to in pa.s.sing. This was the feeling of party solidarity, which still existed despite the fact that the Independents had had their own party organization for some six months. Most of the prominent men in both Socialist parties had worked together in a common cause for many years, and while, in the heat of purely partisan conflicts this was sometimes forgotten for the moment, it nevertheless united the two factions when, as now, the attack came from the extreme Right.

Complete details of the mutiny of this summer have never been given out.

According to the best reports available, it started on the battles.h.i.+p _Westfalen_ at Wilhelmshaven and included altogether four vessels, one of which was the _Nurnberg_. The captain of the _Nurnberg_ is said to have been thrown overboard. Rumor and enemy report made the most of the affair and undoubtedly exaggerated it greatly, but there can be no doubt that it was serious and that the morale of the fleet was greatly affected by it. Some of the ring-leaders--how many it is not known--were executed, and a considerable number were imprisoned for long terms. The extent and severity of the sentences added fuel to the discontent already prevailing throughout the fleet. The men's fighting spirit sank as their revolutionary spirit rose. Von Capelle's boast that the fleet's preparedness for battle ”shall and will not be brought in question for a moment” was a vain boast. The fleet was already rotten at the core.

Ironic fate had led the men who directed the affairs of the German Empire to forge one of the weapons with which it was later to be destroyed. On April 9, 1917, Nicholas Lenine, with thirty-two fanatical followers, had been brought from Switzerland through Germany in a sealed car and sent into Russia to sow the seeds of Bolshevism. How the plan succeeded is only too well known. November brought the overthrow of the Kerensky government. Released from the necessity of the intensive pre-revolutionary propaganda at home, the Bolsheviki turned their attention to imperialistic Germany. Their missionaries, liberally equipped with corruption funds, entered Germany by secret routes and worked with Germans in sympathy with their cause, notably Liebknecht.

Foremost among their propagandists was a man who called himself Radek.

His real name was Sobelsohn, a Jew from Austrian Galicia. Expelled from his labor union before the war for robbing a _Genosse_, he had settled in Bremen and was even then the guiding spirit in the most radical and rabid circles. After the Russian Bolshevik revolution he quickly took up the severed threads of his former connections. He was intimate with all the Independent Socialist leaders already named, and with many others. A man of acknowledged organizing and propagandizing ability, he contributed markedly to making Germany ripe for revolution.

All the gates were thrown down to Bolshevism following the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, when Joffe, the Bolshevik Amba.s.sador, was permitted to come to Berlin and establish himself in the palace of the former Imperial Russian Emba.s.sy in _Unter den Linden_. He brought a staff of men and women whose sole duty it was to carry on Bolshevist propaganda against the government to which he was accredited. Leading Independent Socialists were frequent visitors at the emba.s.sy, and Haase, at an elaborate banquet held there in May, 1918, responded to the toast, ”The Red International.”

Closest to Joffe of all Germans was Dr. Oskar Cohn, one of the founders of the Independent Socialist Party. Cohn, who is a Berlin lawyer, possesses that curious combination of characteristics so often encountered in extreme Socialism. In his private life of undoubted probity, he rejoiced at an opportunity to accept and distribute money given by a foreign government to overthrow the government of his own Fatherland. Mild-mannered and an opponent of force, he made the cause of Liebknecht's murderous Spartacans his own. Scholarly and of deep learning, he a.s.sociated freely with the dregs of the population, with thieves and murderers, in furtherance of the cause of the international proletariat. He became the legal adviser of Joffe and one of the main distributors of the Bolsheviki's corruption fund.

The political police were at all times cognizant of the revolutionary propaganda that was being carried on, but they were greatly hampered in their work by a limitation which had been imposed in 1917 upon the so-called _Schutzhaft_, literally ”protective arrest.” This had been freely used against suspected persons from the beginning of the war, and hundreds had sat in jail for weeks in what was equivalent to a sentence of imprisonment, without having had an opportunity to hear what the charge against them was. The abuse of this right became so glaring that it was provided in 1917 that arrested persons could not be detained without a definite crime being charged against them. The police made a long report on Joffe's activities in June, 1918, and the authorities, with some hesitation, placed the matter before the ”Amba.s.sador.” He lied bravely, declaring that he cherished no plans against the integrity of the German Empire and that his large staff existed solely to carry on the legitimate business of the emba.s.sy.

The authorities, unconvinced, maintained a watch on the activities of the Russians. They were particularly suspicious of the unusual number of diplomatic couriers pa.s.sing between Berlin and Petrograd. Their number was said to reach nearly four hundred. The press began to voice these suspicions. Joffe, with a fine show of indignation, declared that it ”was beneath his dignity” to take any notice of them. The tenuity of Herr Joffe's dignity and the value of his word became apparent on November 5, 1918, in the revolution week, when a box in the luggage of a courier arriving from Russia was--”accidentally,” as the official report put it--broken open at the railway station. Its contents proved to be Bolshevik propaganda literature inciting the Germans to inst.i.tute a reign of terror against the _bourgeoisie_, to murder the oppressors of the proletariat and to overthrow the government. One of these appeals came from the Spartacan _Internationale_ and contained a carefully worked-out program for inst.i.tuting a reign of terror.

Even the _Vorwarts_, which had been reluctant to credit the charges against _Genosse_ Joffe, was now compelled to admit that he had lied and misused his diplomatic privileges. Joffe, still denying his guilt, was escorted from the emba.s.sy in the middle of the following night by an armed guard and placed aboard a special train for Moscow, with the whole staff of the emba.s.sy and of the Rosta Telegraph Agency, ostensibly a news agency, but really an inst.i.tution for carrying on Bolshevik propaganda. Once safe in Russia, Joffe admitted his activities in Germany and gloried in them. In a wireless message sent on December 8, 1918, he said the Bolshevik literature had been circulated ”through the good offices of the Independent Socialists.” He declared further that a much greater number of weapons than had been alleged had been handed over to the Independent Barth, together with ”several hundred thousand roubles.” He added:

”I claim for myself the honor of having devoted all my powers to the success of the German revolution through my activities, which were carried on in agreement with the Independent Socialist ministers Haase and Barth and with others.”

Following the publication of this wireless message, Cohn also issued an explanation of his activities in connection with Joffe. He said:

”Is any particular explanation or justification needed to make it clear that I gladly accepted the funds which the Russian comrades sent me by the hand of Comrade Joffe for the purposes of the German revolution? Comrade Joffe gave me the money in the night of November 5th. This had nothing to do with the money which he had previously given me for the purchase of weapons. I used the money for the purpose intended, namely, the spreading of the revolutionary idea, and regret only that circ.u.mstances made it impossible for me to use all of it in this manner.”

Bolshevik centers had been organized all over Germany when the revolution came. On the same day Joffe was expelled, the police in Dusseldorf closed a Bolshevik nest which was ostensibly conducted as a news agency. It was but one of scores of similar centers of revolution.

The revolutionary propaganda being carried on inside the empire was powerfully aided and supplemented by the activities of Germany's enemies along the same lines. No detailed report of the extent of this branch of warfare is yet available, but it was, in the words of one of Germany's leading generals in a talk with the writer, ”devilishly clever and effective.” From the air, through secret channels, through traitors at home, the German soldier or sailor was worked upon. He was told truths about the forces against him that had been suppressed by the German censors. The folly of longer trying to oppose the whole world was pointed out, and every possible weakness in the German character was cunningly exploited. The good effect of this propaganda cannot be doubted.

Testimony regarding the part played by enemy propaganda in bringing about the final collapse of Germany has been given by one of the men best qualified to know the facts. In an article in _Everybody's Magazine_ for February, 1919, George Creel, chairman of the American Committee on Public Information, gives full credit to the work of the American soldiers, but declares that, in the last a.n.a.lysis, Germany was defeated by publicity. The military collapse of Germany was due to ”a disintegration of morale both on the firing line and among the civilian population.” It was the telling of the truth to the Germans by their enemies that finally caused the _debacle_ at a time when the German Army ”was well equipped with supplies and ammunitions, and behind it still stretched line after line almost impregnable by reason of natural strength and military science.”[17]

[17] German a.s.sertions that their armies were never defeated in a military sense regularly arouse and will long continue to arouse anger and scornful indignation among their enemies, yet here we have official testimony to support their contentions. It is no detraction from the valor and military successes of the Allies to a.s.sert again that if the German troops had not been weakened physically by starvation and morally by enemy propaganda, they could have carried on the war for many months more.

The propaganda literature was prepared by historians, journalists and advertising specialists, and even some psychologists were enlisted to help in its writing. Germany's borders, however, were so carefully guarded that it was difficult to get the matter into the country. Mr.

Creel relates interestingly how this was done. Aeroplanes were employed to some extent, but these were so badly needed for fighting purposes that not enough could be obtained for distribution of propaganda literature.

”The French introduced a rifle-grenade that carried pamphlets about six hundred feet in a favoring wind, and a seventy-five millimeter sh.e.l.l that carried four or five miles. The British developed a six-inch gun that carried ten or twelve miles and scattered several thousand leaflets from each sh.e.l.l. The Italians used rockets for close work on the front, each rocket carrying forty or fifty leaflets. The obvious smash at German morale was through America's aim and swift war-progress, and for this reason the Allies used the President's speeches and our military facts freely and sometimes exclusively.

”To reach further behind the lines, all fronts used paper balloons filled with coal-gas. They would remain in the air a minimum of twenty hours, so as to make a trip of six hundred miles in a thirty-mile wind.

On a Belgian fete-day such balloons carried four hundred thousand greetings into Belgium, and some flew clear across Belgium. Fabric balloons, carrying seventeen or eighteen pounds of leaflets, were also employed, but with all the balloons the uncertainty of the wind made the work haphazard.